Alan Johnson wins 2 of 3 dirt modified races

Veteran driver Alan Johnson was aiming at something very special this past weekend. He was going for a three-race sweep

After a modified win Friday
at Brewerton Speedway and
another on Saturday night at
Canandaigua Motorsports
Park, everything looked good
— until the team started its
drive back to Syracuse.

Johnson, 54, of Middlesex,
picked up career win No. 61 at
Brewerton on Friday night as
he made his way around Syra´
cuse’s Chris Hile with eight
laps to go.

“I had a good starting
spot,” Johnson said. “I got up
to second behind Chris. ...
We were pretty much racing
up through in the beginning
there. I was ahead of him and
then he was ahead of me, and
he was going. I thought it
might be his night. He was re´
ally going good.”

Hile was hoping for his
first-ever modified feature win
and was committed to the ex´
treme inside of the speedway
where there was a small strip
of tackier clay, known as
browner. And for a while,
Johnson seemed content to fol´
low him until that line started
to go away, so he moved to the
top side in an attempt to get
by.

“You’re not going to go by
him if you’re in his tire
tracks,” Johnson said. “I fig´
ured I’d give it a try. The worst
that could happen was one or
two guys could get under me if
I tried it up high. It was worth
the gamble.”

The gamble paid off as
Johnson came away with the
win. At Canandaigua, he drove
the Kenny Saya-owned big
block to another victory, his
second of the year at the track
and 116th of his career, which
began when he was 16.

“I hung around the top five
the first half of the race,”
Johnson said. “Then the track
slickened up pretty good. I
have a pretty low-compression
motor in the car that doesn’t go
down the straightaways, but
boy it goes through the cor´
ners. It got slick and the car
just handled super well.”

Everything seemed fine as
Johnson said goodbye to the
team and headed home. As the
team was heading back to the
Thruway on Route 21 in Farm´
ington, the hauler was T-boned
by another vehicle at an inter´
section, leaving debris strewn
across the highway. The road
was closed for four hours for
the cleanup.

The team was scheduled to
race Sunday at Utica-Rome
Speedway and was determined
not to miss the race.

“These guys, by the time
they got done with the accident
report, I don’t even know how
they got home,” Johnson said.
“They got to Syracuse at 4
(a.m.) and then they were back
on the road at 8 or 9 trying to
get it towed back to Syra´
cuse.”

After a nearly sleepless
night, the team made it to Uti´
ca-Rome with a pickup truck
pulling a smaller trailer. Johnson finished second in the feature after leading for one lap.
Stewart Friesen got around
Johnson just before the halfway mark and went on to his
fourth win in a row at the track
and 19th this season.

As for Johnson, he had nothing but praise for his crew
members, who only got about
an hour of sleep the night be´
fore.

“I haven’t had dedication
like that in years. They really
came through for me.”

At Fulton Speedway, Penn´
sylvania’s Dan Vauter led
every lap on his way to his
first win at the track. Jeremy
Pitcher captured the sportsman
feature by 0.127 seconds,
while Alan Fink won the late-
model feature by 0.110 sec´
onds.

Matt Hirschman won the
62nd annual Race of Champi´
ons modified feature at Oswe´
go Speedway. Ray Graham took the supermodified race
for the second year in a row by
passing by Joe Gosek on lap
42. Andrew Schartner won the
small-block supermodified
race.

Tonight the ROC modifieds
head to I-88 Speedway in
Afton for the Wade Decker
Memorial, while on Wednes´
day night Tim McCreadie and
the Lucas Oil late models join
the Empire Super Sprints at
Utica-Rome.